


Just between us

by Roterwolkenvogel



Series: Uno Dos Tres [1]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ensemble Cast, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, That fic no one asked for but here we are, hand waving of actual existing cities and government institutions, if Hollywood can do that so can I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-13
Updated: 2018-09-13
Packaged: 2019-07-11 20:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15979466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roterwolkenvogel/pseuds/Roterwolkenvogel
Summary: Fate comes a-knocking at six thirty in the morning, because the bell hasn’t been working for the better part of a year and Faraday can’t be bothered to make enough fuss to get it fixed.Or how Faraday and Vasquez met in the 'Uno Dos Tres'-verse.





	Just between us

**Author's Note:**

> I think that is the longest consecutive piece of writing I have done this year, which tells you a lot about my writing habits. 
> 
> There is a lot more Spanish in this one and Google Translate only goes so far, so please let me know if I did any horrifying grammatical errors (the same always goes for English, that still isn’t my native tongue).

Fate comes a-knocking at six thirty in the morning, because the bell hasn’t been working for the better part of a year and Faraday can’t be bothered to make enough fuss to get it fixed.

Just like he can’t be bothered to get up and get the door, curled around the toilet as he is.

 

The knocking is persistent and goes rather well with the knocking in his head. Over his groaning, he can hear a key jostling in the locking system and then there’s something falling over and a high breathy voice says “Heck”.

 

Seconds later, a shadow blocks the light streaming into the bathroom door and Joshua Faraday looks up into the disappointed face of old Jack Horne.

 

“Why’s the dog in front of the door, son?”, he asks and Faraday would like to answer, he really would, but he hunches over the toilet bowl and starts gagging so hard that his eyes water.

There’s not much to come anymore, he’s emptied his stomach around an hour ago and now it’s just bile for the hell of it.

 

A glass of water is trusted into his face when he resurfaces from his porcelain prison and he grabs it with shaky hands, slowly sipping, until the acrid taste of bile is finally fading.

 

“Guarding the door”, he answers finally and Jack sighs and shakes his head. At least he doesn’t pull the ‘if your mother could see you now’-spiel after the last time where Faraday lost it at that, yelling and cussing up a blue streak.

 

Now he just settles on the disappointed grandpa face and that’s just as bad. Not that Faraday faults him, if anyone has a right to this, it’s Jack Horne, who had been his only constant apart from his mother and after her death, his sole one.

 

“What are you doing here?”, he asks, still curled around the bowl just in case.

 

“I was contacted by an old friend of mine, looking for someone with your set of skills as an independent contractor.”

 

“My set of skills? Gambling and fucking you mean?”, there’s a laugh in his throat that threatens to come with more bile, so he swallows it down and grimaces.

 

“More or less. I told them you would talk to them, so up you go and make yourself presentable!”

 

“Why should I help them?”

 

“I’ve seen your last account statements because you keep leaving them in my flat. You will.”

 

Jack Horne is right, as he usually is.

 

|||

 

Sitting at his kitchen table an hour later, hands curled around a glass of water with a dissolved tablet of unknown origin that Jack has put in there, he hears it knocking again.

 

“Your friend?”, he asks Jack and the other nods and hollers: “It’s open!”

 

Faraday hears the door being carefully opened and a female voice asks confused: “Why is there a stuffed dog on the floor?”

 

“Guarding the door!”, he yells and regrets it immediately when his brain informs him in no uncertain terms that any loud noise is punishable by pounding headaches.

 

He’s too absorbed by trying to breathe through them, that he misses the arrival of Jack’s friend. Or rather, friends – apart from a woman, whose voice had complained about good old Jack the dog, there’s a man next to her. He’s tall, taller even than Faraday himself and with three of them being tall bastards, his kitchen suddenly feels even smaller.

 

The woman, at least, is short. She looks at him with open disbelief and then her gaze wanders to the man by her side and then to Jack.

 

“Joshua Faraday, at your service, Ma’am”, he slurs and drowns the rest of his glass in one gulp.

 

“Pleased to meet you Mr. Faraday”, the man replies and Faraday doesn’t miss how the woman doesn’t even bother to agree. “I’m Agent Chisolm and this is Agent Cullen. Thank you for having us over at this time of the morning.”

 

“No thanks to me”, he answers honestly and points at Jack: “It’s all the old geezer’s fault.”

 

No one bothers to correct him, so he pushes on: “Now good agent, care to tell me why you need little old me for this operation?”

 

“We do not need you”, Agent Cullen says firmly: “In fact, I think we better find someone else who is less likely to botch a sensitive operation by being drunk off his ass.”

 

It stings, Faraday is not going to lie, but he still gives her a wink and a leer and she looks at him like something she scrapped off her boots.

 

“There’s not time to find someone else who is so clearly his type”, Agent Chisolm says calmly.

 

“Whose type?”, Faraday asks.

 

“James McCann.”

 

“Never heard of him.”

 

“Not of him, but maybe of his employer – Bartholomew Bogue.”

 

“The boogeyman?”

 

“The very same.”

 

Intrigued despite himself, Faraday asks the other question burning on his tongue: “How did your choice fall on me? Don’t think Jack walks around with my picture on his phone.”

 

“He does not”, Agent Chisolm says with laughter in his voice before he sobers again: “But someone remembered you from your brief stint in the military all those years back and recommended we check on you.”

 

There is a lot Faraday had expected for an answer, this is not one of it.

 

“Didn’t think anyone would still remember me from back then. T’was over ten years ago.”

 

“Goodnight Robicheaux has a very good memory.”

 

|||

 

In the end, it’s easy to say yes, greased by leftover alcohol and a maudlin mood at the memory of Goodnight Robicheaux and the military.

 

The agents leave him and Jack alone with a ticked to Las Vegas lying conspicuously on the table top.

 

“Why did I say yes?”, Faraday mumbles and buries his head in his hands.

 

“Because you’re a good man, Joshua Faraday. Your mother would be proud”, Jack says and then gets the tissues from over the sink when this gives Faraday the last push over that damnable cliff.

 

|||

 

Joshua Faraday arrives at the McCarran International airport a scant week after the fateful morning and is promptly whisked away by Agent Chisolm and Agent Cullen to a nondescript hotel at the Las Vegas strip.

 

He’s been drinking steadily since he woke up and he is pleasantly soused so that Agent Cullen’s disapproving stare is not too much to bear, sprawled as he is on the couch.

 

Agent Chisolm has left them alone to get refreshments and the rest of the crew and he is starring at Agent Cullen until she loses her patience.

 

“I don’t like you”, she says, frankly: “I think you are a useless drunkard who will botch this mission the first chance he gets and god help you if you do. Because I won’t.”

 

“Why are you so invested in this whole thing?”, he asks: “Bogue is just another evil in a world full of it. Why him? Why not anyone else?”

 

“Because Bogue is a liar, a thief, a smuggler, a murdered and a stain on god’s good earth”, another voice says from somewhere around the door and Faraday could have lived another ten years without hearing that man again.

 

When he turns his head, Goodnight Robicheaux leans against the doorjamb, smiling wistfully. He had worn the same smile when he had handed Faraday his dishonourable discharge back in the day and Faraday can feel the bile rise.

 

“It is good to see you again, Joshua Faraday”, Goodnight says and ambles over, hand outstretched. “Can’t say the same”, Faraday mumbles, but grabs the offered appendage nonetheless, shaking it carefully.

 

“How have you been in these years?”, the other man asks, ignoring Faraday’s less then polite greeting.

 

“Living”, he replies honestly and Goodnight sadly clucks his tongue. “I had hope-“

 

Whatever he had hoped, Faraday is spared the explanation by Agent Chisolm arriving, a young man in tow. He has a Mohawk and wears more leather than any sane person would in the desert heat and nothing in his face betrays that he has even seen Faraday when he takes a seat.

 

“Now that we are all here”, Agent Chisolm begins: “Let me introduce you to Joshua Faraday, our honey trap. Mr. Faraday, I don’t think I need to introduce Agent Robicheaux?”, at Faraday’s shake of head he continues: “The last one in our round is Red Harvest. He’s here for Bogue’s other right hand man, Mr. Denali.”

 

“Honey trap?”, Faraday hazards and that gets him the first real acknowledgment from Red Harvest. “Shared interest”, is the answer he gets from Agent Chisolm and that’s neither here nor there.

 

“There’s a briefing package on the table for you, Mr. Faraday”, Chisolm continues: “Please make yourself familiar with the contents, we will meet again in the afternoon to start the operation.”

 

At Cullen’s raised eyebrow, Faraday says: “I can read!” but isn’t deigned with a response, as the others file out. Goodnight lingers, but Faraday buries his head in the papers and relaxes when the other man gets the hint and gets out too.

 

|||

 

The briefing package is more extensive than Faraday expected.

 

There’s a surprisingly detailed account of Bogue’s less than savoury activities, which include but do not stop at human trafficking, drug smuggling and being a general thorn in the side of every upstanding citizen. He jolts when he comes across the name ‘Emma Cullen’ after a date just shy of a year ago, involving a failed operation and the death of an agent – Matthew Cullen.

That explains the woman’s obsession with Bogue.

 

Denali’s page is shorter, barely managing to fill one, sparse bits of information that offer nothing forthcoming. Just like Red. Maybe that was the shared interest Chisolm meant.

 

James McCann is more interesting, the man even looking way more appealing than Faraday had expected. He’s thirty-five, a scant four years older than Faraday and he has an easy grin on almost every picture present in the folder. As well as a fondness for bespoke suits it seems, not one picture showing the man in anything else.

 

There are, however, a good number of pictures of McCann with a varying array of men on his arm and Faraday knows, in an instant, that he is definitely his type.

 

|||

 

Goodnight comes back before the others do and in a desperate bid to escape any well-meaning attention or worse, apologies, Faraday blurts out: “How’s Billy?”

 

Back in the army, it had been a sort of open secret that the highly decorated Goodnight Robicheaux played the other field, ‘don’t’ ask don’t tell’ be damned. No one gave him any slack for it, partially because Goodnight was a darn good soldier and partially because Billy was a scary motherfucker who would not hesitate to stab anyone talking shit.

 

Goodnight looks startled at that but gets himself back under control rather fast, a soft smile appearing on his face like it always did when anyone asked about Billy Robicheaux.

 

“Good, he’s good! Opened up a bakery like he always talked about a few years ago and it’s going really well, doing wonders for him.”

 

“Good”, Faraday replies: “That’s… very good.”

 

Any lingering awkwardness after their brief exchange gets swept away by the entrance of Cullen, Chisolm and Red. Faraday, of course, can’t go longer than a minute without putting his foot on his mouth so he says to Cullen: “I’m sorry about your husband.”

 

She scoffs. “What do you know about loss, Mr. Faraday?” and he desperately wants to tell her about losing his mother, about losing himself and being pickled in alcohol for months, before even the army got enough of him and threw him out. But he refrains. He’s not here to make friends, he’s here because he got offered a nice sum for an easy party trick and he needs the money.

 

“Nothing”, he says instead and Goodnight looks at him disappointed.

 

He ignores it.

 

There’s not much talk between them, Agent Cullen handing him a small wad of cash, reminding him to be frugal with government resources and then she lets him lose on the strip, pointing him towards where McCann last was seen.

 

|||

 

McCann is easy. That’s the first thing Faraday realises. Desperate for any sort of attention and highly susceptible to anyone giving him the time of the day, it takes Faraday not long to be throwing moo eyes at the man over a private booth.

 

It’s pathetic and Faraday even feels bad, until he remembers the cheque waiting for him at the end of it and then he throws McCann a grin and licks his lips after taking a sip of his cocktail.

 

The man blushes.

 

Faraday has never thought of himself as ‘gay’ or ‘straight’ – he had always described himself as an appreciator of the human form in all its shapes, or, one day in a drunken haze to a mortified Jack, as “the world’s greatest lover”.

 

So getting McCann to fall head over heels for him? Easy. Even easier, when he has no need to actually go to town with him but can pretend that he needs to be wooed and courted like an old-fashioned chap. It’s so much easier that way. Easy, easy, easy.

 

He’s at his third drink paid by McCann and he sidles closer, until their knees are bumping together.

 

This, he decides, will be the damn easiest paycheque he ever made.

 

|||

 

By the end of the first week, he’s out of the shared hotel room and firmly ensconced in one of the nicer suites of the casino McCann oversees for Bogue. “Easy peasy lemon squeezy, told you so Cullen”, he sing-songs at her when he packs his bag and only half-listens to Chisolm jabbering on about safety and the mission.

 

But he’s hell-bent on taking the offered chance to escape the overbearing presence of Goodnight and Chisolm and the cold shoulder Cullen is throwing at him whenever they come close.

 

He hasn’t seen Red since that first day and he has no regrets about that.

 

|||

 

Faraday meets the man when he snoops in the casino kitchen. He’s standing on a wall, arms around a trembling woman, and is muttering Spanish in her ear as sobs wrack her body. Giving Faraday the evil eye when his gaze lingers too long, he turns back to the woman, softly steering her towards the exit and Faraday can see that she is limping quite badly.

 

He does not mention the encounter to McCann or the agents, with whom he has a mandatory meeting every day at different hours, to keep them posted on the mission status.

 

McCann keeps being easy, secrets spilling from his lips like water from a fountain when he is exhausted after a day at work, just lazing on the couch in Faraday’s room or pressing him against a wall, kisses stale like old beer.

 

Faraday makes use of the hotel minibar and he hasn’t been truly sober since he stepped into Vegas.

 

Then, their routine changes. McCann is coming by in the middle of the day when Faraday is lying flat on the rug in front of the TV, watching a wrestling match upside down.

 

“I need to go on a quick trip, won’t be long sweetie”, he murmurs as he drags Faraday up and presses kisses to his mouth that he is too dazed to return. Then he’s out again, as quick as he came by and Faraday is dropping back on the rug and lays flat down again.

 

He realises that he hasn’t put on the door hanger when the cleaning crew comes in a while later.

 

There’s the man again. He has seen him on occasion throughout the casino, still can’t pinpoint what exactly he does but he puts a calming hand on the shoulder of the woman accompanying him when she spooks at the sight of Faraday.

 

“Sorry sir”, he says and the smile doesn’t reach his eyes.

 

“No harm done”, Faraday says: “I’ll be getting out of your hair.” And then he’s out the door as fast as he can before those two words in an accented voice conjure ghost of a past long gone by.

 

|||

 

“Day trip, huh?”, Goodnight repeats and eyes the fries warily, whilst Faraday is attacking a burger with glee.

 

“Can’t say more than that”, he says around a mouthful and Cullen rolls his eyes: “Maybe you’d be better at this if you weren’t constantly drunk of your rocks.”

 

He sticks his tongue out at her.

 

“Children”, Goodnight chides: “Now’s not the time. Emma, we agreed that the independent contractor we brought in would not need agent training so you will forgive Joshua for not stopping McCann and demanding the details of his little trip. We’re not playing the jealous lover routine here.”

 

There’s no apology forthcoming from the woman but Faraday didn’t expect any. He and Cullen do not see eye to eye and he has no vested interest in her liking him either.

 

“I’ll inform Sam – we have agents posted at the airport anyway, someone will have seen him if he took that route.” And that’s the end of their little meeting.

 

|||

 

Someone has indeed seen McCann, he learns the next day when he meets with Chisolm. Boarding a flight to Tijuana.

Chisolm seems excited about this and even deigns to explain at Faraday’s confused stare.

 

“Human trafficking. Mexico is the preferred country for human trafficking into the United States. You don’t think Bogue would be as rich as he is if he didn’t cut back on his cost for the casinos somehow?”

 

“Forced labour?”, he guesses and Chisolm nods: “As well as prostitution. We have a man on the inside of the whole operation but we haven’t been able to pinpoint anything more. The smugglers who brought him over weren’t anyone tied to Bogue so we have high hopes in you and McCann here.”

 

Faraday has never done well with high expectations, his mother could tell Chisolm that, if she weren’t rotting in a grave on the other end of the country right now.

 

|||

 

This night, caught between past and present, he calls Jack.

 

The old man knows him well enough to just let him breathe down the line like a creep for a few minutes, until he has gathered his wits enough to put his thoughts into words: “I don’t think I can do it. Chisolm expects so much of my involvement and I know I will fuck this up. And then Cullen will know that she was right and Goodnight will look at me with those gentle eyes and tell me that he had hoped for better from me, just like he did back then.”

 

Jack tuts. He tends to do that and it does settle Faraday’s nerves a bit with the familiarity.

 

“You’re not a bad man, Joshua”, he starts his usual mantra that he never feels will stick someday: “You’re a good man who has made some bad decisions in his life, but you can gain forgiveness now. No one expects you to singlehandedly take down the boogeyman but you can do your part to bring him down. I believe in you, Joshua, and you should too.”

 

And he wishes, desperately, that this would be true.

 

|||

 

This night, without McCann to entertain, he goes out. Ambles over the strip without conscious thought until he ends up in one of the smaller bars. It’s a table top dancing bar and he stares blearily at the writhing bodies on stage over the rim of his glass.

 

“Joshua?”, someone asks right next to him and he whips around, coming face to face with someone he had never thought he’d see again. She is still beautiful, even ten years down the line, and he tells her as much.

 

“Josh, it’s really you!”, she laughs delighted and hugs him. “Maria here somewhere too?”, he asks and briefly there’s a dark shadow over her face before she smiles again and shakes her head. “No such luck, Josh. Tonight, you’re mine” and she winks at him promisingly.

 

They end up back together at her place, somewhere in the shadier parts of the city and her breasts feel good pressed against him when he plunders her mouth. “It’s so good to see you, Betty”, he whispers when she slips a hand down his pants and he proceeds to forget himself for a few hours.

 

The man wakes them up, walking into Betty’s room and there is no recognition on his face when he says: “ _Qué esta haciendo él aquí_?”

 

“ _Dormido_ ”, Betty answers him without raising her head from where she is pillowed on Faraday’s chest.

 

“ _El no deberia_ ”, the man says and leaves.

 

“Charming guy”, Faraday mumbles: “Who is he?”

 

“Another lost soul”, she answers sadly and then swats him to get him up and going.

 

|||

 

McCann is back and apparently very glad to see Josh, if how he is pressed against the door is any indication. His kisses feel desperate and Faraday, Faraday is not a good man.

 

“What has you so worked up?”, he whispers sugary sweet and lets his hands trail up and down the other man’s back.

 

“Nothing good”, McCann says and presses in impossibly closer until Faraday feels like he can’t take a breath without drowning in the other man’s scent. It’s a distinctly unpleasant sensation.

 

“Want to talk about it?”, Faraday tries as McCann nearly drags him to the bed. “No”, is the answer and that’s the last thing they talk about this night.

 

|||

 

When he wakes up, Faraday is alone in McCann’s room, his body aching something fierce. He has curled into himself, dragged as much of the blanket around his body as possible.

 

“ _Estás por encima de tu cabeza, guero_ ”, someone says from the doorway and he is less surprised when he should that it’s his mystery man.

 

“Oh good, we got ourselves a Mexican”, he spits out, which is extremely unkind considering that the man comes bearing a tray of food. Surprisingly, he doesn’t get it thrown in his face and he realises ashamed, that the man is probably used to it, to get treated like a second class human.

 

“ _Lo siento_ ”, he says, as an afterthought and that gets him a raised eyebrow.

 

“ _Tu hablas español_?”

 

“No. Just some phrases”, Faraday says thruthfully and makes to get up, wincing when his body makes it known how unwise that is.

 

The man frowns at him, puts the tray on the nightstand and makes to help him get upright, his hands surprisingly soft.

 

“Thank you”, Faraday says after he is sitting with his back to the headboard, cup of coffee firmly in his hands. There’s a piece of paper wedged in between the butter and the salt that reads ‘I’m sorry – James’ and Faraday has the urge to flip it the bird.

 

Instead, he decides to live up to Chisolm’s expectation of him, especially since the man has made no move to leave the room.

 

“How do you know Betty?”

 

“She was kind to me when I came into the city. We’ve struck up a friendship”

 

“I’ve seen you around the casino, always wondered what you are working here actually”

 

“Here and there, wherever I am needed.”

 

There is no way to ask a man if he’d been smuggled into the US of A without evoking some flight or fight response, so Faraday tries the sneaky approach: “You’ve always worked for Bogue?”

 

“ _No eres sutil_ ”, the other replies: “Excuse me, but I am expected somewhere else.”

 

And then he leaves Faraday alone with the food.

 

|||

 

This night, Red is back with them, all of them seated in a private booth of a little club, Faraday pressed alongside Agent Cullen.

 

“Bogue will be back this Friday”, says Red: “There’s talk that he’ll be bringing a big cache of drugs with him, so if we want to strike, now’s the time.”

 

“How do you even know that?”, Faraday asks incredulous.

 

“By being good at his job”, Cullen hisses meanly.

 

Red doesn’t dignify any of them with a response, instead choosing to address Chisolm and Goodnight: “They’ll all be at the warehouse in the desert, expecting the delivery – Bogue, Denali, McCann. It’s the perfect setup.”

 

“Good”, Sam says: “We will implement operation Rose Creek on Friday. Gentleman, lady, it is time to go back to plan.” Then he turns to Faraday: “It’s better if you go back to the casino, there’s no need for you to be involved too much, just keep McCann complacent.”

 

His tone bodes no argument, so he pretentends to acquiese and makes to leave them, stopping when he has weadled himself out of the booth. “Why’s it called ‘Rose Creek’?”, he asks and no one speaks up, until Agent Cullen sigs and says: “’Rose Creek’ was Matthew’s hometown.”

 

|||

 

This night, he steals McCann’s phone. Petty thievery is not something he has done in recent years, but some skills just stick. The password is perversely easy to knack and not for the first time Faraday just feels sorry for McCann.

 

He’s definitely not the smartest bulb in the chandelier and Faraday finds the address of the warehouse easily enough. He could go to Chisolm, could admit that he knows where to go and fully intends to help, but he doesn’t.

 

He figures he’d be stopped, maybe even locked into his room like an unruly child so he slips the phone back into McCann’s jacket and lies back next to the man.

 

|||

 

Friday night rolls around with little fanfare. McCann had excused himself for the evening by citing business and he has been incredibly apologetic, covering Faraday with little kisses as if he hadn’t been less than gentle the night before.

 

When the mystery man shows up with breakfast again, Faraday says: “We have to stop meeting like this.”

 

The man just rolls his eyes at him: “Believe me, I have other things to do than bring you breakfast just because McCann feels bad but I am here to do my job.”

 

Feeling more bravado by the knowledge where he will be that night, Faraday asks: “What’s your name?”

 

That gets him a flat stare, then: “ _Soy un hombre muerto caminando de todos modos._ It’s Alejandro.”

 

“thank you”, Faraday says politely and digs into his Eggs Benedict, letting Alejandro slip out the door undisturbed.

 

|||

 

The nightly desert is still a place that feels removed from the world, just like it did all those years ago, when he was but twenty-two and running around Vegas, gambling his way up to the top and taking Maria out for a spin in his convertible, driving into the desert to look at the stars.

 

The warehouse sits conspicuously in the sand, surrounded by nothing but desert, no fence, no nothing. Faraday isn’t dumb enough to believe that there are no safety measures out there.

 

He’s sneaking towards where the entrance is bathed in harsh neon lights, when he sees four men exiting the building. There’s a brief exchange he can’t make out from where he is but the posture of the men is tense. He draws closer, whilst two of them go back, leaving the other two standing in the sand.

 

This close, he can make out both of them – one is McCann and the other the mystery man. McCann has drawn a pistol and the other one is holding his hands in the air in the universal language of “don’t shoot”.

 

“Can’t believe you thought we wouldn’t find out that we are being watched”, McCann says loftily, leaving the pistol trained on the other man’s chest. “Can’t say I expected you to be in it, but here we are. It’s a shame that I got to get rid of you, Alejandro, you did a good job back at the casino.”

 

And oh, it makes sense to Faraday now, Chisolm’s comment of a man inside Bogue’s operation, the mystery man’s many brushes with him now not only random events, but most likely staged.

 

But still, he can’t exactly have man being shot on his watch, can he?

 

So he steps out of the shadows, hands stretched in front of him and says “James”.

 

Both of them whirl around to him, McCann’s face full of surprise and Alejandro spitting Spanish curses. For a brief moment, Faraday thinks that Alejandro can use McCann’s distraction to his advantage, but then another man comes through the door.

 

Faraday recognizes Denali from the picture he studied what feels a life-time ago and now two pistols are trained on them. He raises his hands as well.

 

“Shoot him”, Denali says and when McCann hesitates, he adds: “Either you do it, or I will”. And McCann closes his eyes and pulls the trigger.

 

The shot clips him in the gut, a brief searing pain that makes him shout and crumble into the sand as hell breaks loose around them. There’s another burst of pain from somewhere around his left upper leg and the last thing he consciously sees is Alejandro’s face above him, slowly morphing into Maria’s, as they both whisper: “ _Idiota_.”

 

|||

 

He awakes. And that alone is a surprise. He can’t feel any pain and his surroundings are white enough that he believes he’s in heaven, until he hears someone clear his throat next to him.

 

In a white plastic chair, Agent Cullen sits primly, dressed so colourful that she stands out like a peacock between lesser birds.

 

“Are you lucid now, Mr. Faraday?”, she asks and he gives that question a brief thought. There is still lingering fuzz in his brain but he feels… okay.

 

“So far so good”, he replies, making move to get up. That gets her shooting out of the chair, pressing him back into the bedding with surprising strength.

 

“You’ve been shot multiple times. She stay down”, is her only explanation, her hands only leaving his body when he stops squirming.

 

“If I had known that I only needed to be shot to get you to touch me, I’d have done it sooner”, he jokes. Cullen looks unimpressed.

 

“Don’t joke. You made an incredible idiotic judgement call that nearly resulted in having Bogue escape again. Count yourself lucky.”

 

“Lady Luck always favoured me”, he grins and he can feel that she is incredibly close to losing her calm with him again when it knocks on the door. Without waiting for any invitation, it gets opened and no other than Alejandro peeks in.

 

“Is he lucid?”, he asks Cullen when he sees Faraday awake and she shrugs: “As much as he can be, I guess.”

 

“Bueno”, is her reply and Alejandro makes his way into the room. He grins at Faraday and adds: “You’ve been awake for a few times already, _guero_. Bet you can’t remember a thing.”

 

Alejandro seems indefinitely more susceptible to dealing with him, so Faraday throws a broad smile at his general direction and says: “Nope.”

 

“You kept telling me that I was beautiful and addressing me as ‘Maria’. And then you asked me if I would have lunch with you.”

 

“And, did you say yes?”

 

“You kept calling me ‘Maria’, so I didn’t”, Alejandro drags the chair next to Cullen’s closer to the bed, flopping down gracefully like a cat.

 

“So demanding”, Faraday complains and over Alejandro’s snickers he can hear Cullen muttering under her breath and leaving the room.

 

When the door falls shut, he turns to Alejandro as best as he can: “Did we win?”

 

“No thanks to you, _guero_. But we did. Bogue’s arrested, as are Denali and McCann.”

 

“Hey, I saved your life out there!”

 

“I had the situation under control, until you came waltzing in!”

 

“Certainly didn’t look like it from where I was standing!”

 

“ _Cabrón_ ”, Alejandro rolls his eyes at him: “I’ve been an agent for quite some time, whereas you are a civilian. So give me the benefit of the doubt that I indeed knew what I was doing.”

 

“Wanna tie it up, eh, _chingado_?”, Faraday bares his teeth at him and gets an equally toothy grin in exchange: “Say when, _guero_ ”

 

“Now, now gentlemen”, Agent Chisolm says from where he has unseen entered the hospital room: “Mr. Faraday certainly isn’t fit to do anything but rest for a while longer – if you’d be so kind to leave us alone for a bit, Alejandro?”

 

Alejandro complies without complaint, making to slip away when Faraday yells: “Wanna have lunch with me, Ale?”

At that, he stops, door in hand and his grin is softer now: “I’ll be by with a sandwich later, _guero_.” And then he’s gone.

 

“So”, Agent Chisolm says and takes the chair Alejandro has vacated: “I believe we owe you a cheque, Mr. Faraday.”

 

“Damn straight you do”, he says.

 

“Even if your unplanned actions got us in bigger trouble than necessary, hindering an official operation and endangering our agents. You did what we asked you to do, even if there was nothing real forthcoming out of that.”

 

Faraday gives him his best wounded stare: “Now Agent Chisolm, that’s just hurtful. Here I put myself at great risk for the motherland and you tell me I was just hazard. You better apologize if you want to know where I hid the phone and the papers I got from our dearest McCann, all ready to be presented as prime evidence for Bogue’s crimes.”

 

That startles a laugh out of the agent: “Mr. Faraday, you are a bastard.”

 

“Damn straight I am”, Faraday replies and winks.

 

|||

 

Alejandro does come by with sandwiches later, asking amused if he indeed got Agent Chisolm to call him a bastard and laughing even harder when Faraday answers in the affirmative.

 

The sandwiches are too heavy on the mayonnaise but he is too busy flirting outrageously with Alejandro to make a fuss about it, when he wheedles out the promise of continued visits at his sickbed.

 

He ends up back in his flat before the month is out, still limping a bit from where the shot clipped his femoral but Jack is stocking him with pre-cooked meals and Faraday doesn’t have a habit of leaving his flat too often.

 

Before another two weeks pass, everything already feels like a fever dream, where it not for the media coverage of Bartholomew Bogue’s fall from grace and McCann’s ashen face as he gets brought into court.

 

He hasn’t side neither hide nor hair of any agent save Jack since he flew out from Las Vegas and he feels a bit sad for it, especially because that means he hasn’t seen Alejandro in just as long.

 

Then, one day, there’s knocking at the door and when he opens it, he comes face to face with Alejandro.

 

“Have lunch with me, _guerito_?”, he asks and Faraday says: “ _Sí_ ” and closes the door behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> There might be more, because there are still snippets I want to write that didn’t fit into this one – so maybe one bigger fic composed of smaller ficlets... (like when ‘Agent Cullen’ became ‘Emma’, how Faraday’s and Vasquez’ lunch went and how they became the item they are in the other stories of this verse and so on)
> 
>  
> 
> **Spanish translations:**
> 
>  
> 
> Qué esta haciendo él aquí? – What is he doing here?
> 
> Dormido – Sleeping
> 
> Estás por encima de tu cabeza – You are in over your head
> 
> Lo siento – I am sorry
> 
> Tu hablas español? – You speak Spanish?
> 
> No eres sutil – You are not subtle
> 
> Soy un hombre muerto caminando de todos modos – I am a dead man walking anways
> 
> Idiota – Idiot
> 
> Bueno – Good
> 
> Cabrón – Bastard


End file.
